Bear Arms (Alpha Werebear Shapeshifter Romance) (Mating Call Dating Agency Book 4)

by Lynn Red

  Eve laughed so hard she almost made a snorting sound. “You could call it that. Or you could say that I watched him go feral, almost kill four guys who were chasing me, and then I flipped out on him because,” she paused for a second, looking backward in time with a wistful gaze that seemed to scan the years of her memories. “Well, I don’t know why, actually. He did save me. I guess it was just like flipping a switch in his brain that made him go from nothing to murderous.”

  “He did still go bananas, even if there was a reason for it.” Dora offered. “I read the newspaper article. I can understand why he’d freak you out. It’s like when you see one of those shows on Animal Planet and a... I dunno, bear or a leopard or something is just kinda hanging out, and then in a terrifying instant of almost unreal violence, she sees some threat coming along and erupts into a ball of rage. Half a second later the only thing left of whatever approached them is a greasy red stain, and—”

  “That might be overstating things a bit,” Eve said with a smirk. “But not much I guess. You’ve pretty much got it though. After that, I got wary of him, even though he’d never done anything in the entire time we dated for me to think of him hurting me. I just kept going back to that moment. I couldn’t get it out of my head, and then one morning I was watching him as he slept in the bed we’d shared for three years... and I couldn’t do it anymore.”

  Dora watched her old friend, studying the look on Eve’s face. It wasn’t fear – not anymore, anyway – it was more wariness, more of just a detached observation of something that once was. A few moments later, Eve broke the silence. “I don’t know if I can do it again,” she said. “I don’t know if I can even look at him again, more out of my own shame than anything else. I did essentially run him out of town, after all.”

  She had to cut in. “You can’t blame yourself for that. We were all fifteen years younger. Twenty?” she’d never been exactly certain on Eve’s life timeline. “It was before we met, anyway. Even if it was your fault, you can’t dwell on it. But you might be right. Maybe best just to let things lie.”

  “He doesn’t let things lie,” Eve said. “I think it’s against his lion nature. And you don’t know Rake.”

  That hung in the air between them like a limp worm. “That’s true,” Dora finally said. “But, well, you don’t know him either. Not anymore. He could show up with a sweater vest, tweed jacket and a pipe.”

  Eve’s shoulders started shaking with laughter she wasn’t quite ready to release. “If he does, with all those tattoos all over his arms, I’m gonna laugh really, really hard. And then I’m probably going to pee my pants. I’d be less surprised if he showed up in, I don’t know, a Village People biker outfit.”

  Dora scrunched up her face. “And that wouldn’t make you laugh?”

  “Not as much as trying to imagine Rake Dolan some kind of history professor teaching college students about the history of England or something.”

  The two of them sat quietly for a moment, Dora absent mindedly braiding Eve’s hair. It was just one of those things they did. Like some friends finishing each other’s sentences, Dora would just start braiding. Every now and then, Eve said something about how it was her inner gorilla coming out, and if there were any ticks, she’d collect those instead of braiding.

  This time though, there weren’t any jokes. No cute quips or anything else, just two friends sitting quietly in an otherwise empty office and trying to figure out what life was about to throw at them.

  “Listen, you must have your reasons for going on a double, and I think I understand them. You have to promise me one thing though.”

  “I owe you,” Eve said. “Ask and ye shall receive.” She started twirling her own hair. That was Dora’s sign that Eve’s bravado was cracking just a bit.

  “You have to tell me how it is when you get laid,” Dora said, somehow maintaining a deadpan in her voice and face that would have made Bob Newhart proud. “And I mean details. Details, you hear me?”

  Eve exploded into laughter. The tension of the entire past week seemed to explode at once. “After all the times I harassed you about the same thing, and how relentlessly I made you tell me about you and Monte gettin’ it on, I guess I deserve that. Fine, fine,” she said. “You’ll get all the details you want. More than you want, probably.”

  *

  “I’m nervous as shit,” Eve announced, stepping out of her office two hours after the two had stopped talking that morning. “I think I’m gonna throw up.”

  Dora looked up from her old mechanical IBM keyboard. She’d never felt any reason to advance. Her computer was plenty new, but something about the tactile clicking and bouncing of the ancient keys comforted her squirrel ears. She thought maybe it was like those sound machines that make babies think they’re still in the womb, except for squirrels it was making them remember the clicking-tapping-munching sounds of being a tiny newborn in a nest. All the sounds were the others eating.

  Or at least, that’s what she told herself to justify spending a hundred bucks every time her keyboard needing servicing.

  “Trash can’s here,” Dora said with a concerned look. “You’re not sick are you? Like actually, getting-the-flu-and-thinking-it’s-nerves sick?”

  Eve pouted slightly, which she almost never did, and sat down in the chair facing Dora’s desk with a huff. “If it was I’d have an excuse to get out of this.”

  “You don’t have to—”

  “Yes I do,” Eve cut Dora off. “I have to do this at some point. I can’t just stay the lovable town spinster for the rest of my life or I’ll go legit insane.”

  It was Dora’s turn to interrupt. “You have gotta take it easy on yourself. For fifteen years you’ve been trying to get over the guy you thought was the one for you. And now you’re taking a pretty big-ass step right here. You have every right to be nervous.”

  “Well,” Eve began and then left off with a frown. “Maybe I should maybe just get a few more cats and start crocheting.” She made a deep-throated grunting sound. “I guess I’m just a wreck and won’t let myself do anything but dwell on it.”

  Dora stood from behind her desk and cracked her knuckles, then her shoulders, then her middle and lower back. “Let’s make a deal,” she said. “Now pardon me for being a little bit rom-com and a little bit sitcom, but if anything you don’t like happens, send me a signal. Some kind of sign. I’ll call, make up some bullshit about dying from some unnamed, unknowable illness, and then you have to leave to come get me.”

  “What if he picks me up?”

  “Insist on driving yourself.”

  “Oh come on, I might be overbearing sometimes, but wouldn’t that be just a little much? I should be happy to have a date, not all full of frets and panics.” Eve was chewing the inside of her cheek, which gave her face a slightly hollow look on the left side. “Do you think I’m crazy?”

  “Is that a trick question?” Dora smiled. “No, I think you’re nervous and I think you have every right to be. But,” she drew the word out for a few seconds and then left off, considering her words carefully.

  “But what?” Eve prodded. “You can’t just half-say something and then quit. That’s not part of the deal.”

  “I’m just trying to figure out the best way to say this without making it sound like I’m telling you that you’re desperate.”

  Eve laughed in a short burst. “Well I guess you pretty much said it now, didn’t you? May as well get the rest of it out.”

  “Sorry, that’s really not what I meant.”

  “Yeah it is,” Eve said. “And it’s okay because let’s be honest. I haven’t exactly been on a romantic hot-streak in the last... well, ever.”

  “It’s all right,” Dora said. “Before Monte, it had been... god, five years? Six? Since the last time I was with someone. We’re busy making matches, you know? You, especially. It’s hard to take out the time to do it for ourselves. Now, okay fine, I’ll talk without hedging my words.” She took a deep breath. “I think you should jus
t go and give it a try. You’re not signing any mating contracts, you’re not about to open up a joint bank account. Why not just go with it and have a good time?”

  Suddenly, Eve stood up, rather stiffly, and stuck her fists in her sides. “Fuck it,” she announced in a somewhat triumphant way that reminded Dora of what Napoleon might’ve been like, had he used English swears. “I’m just gonna go and I’m gonna see what happens. And, hopefully, I’ll have one hell of a dirty story to tell you soon.”

  “Oh yeah?” Dora asked, giving her friend a fairly naughty set of bedroom eyes. “You think?”

  “I have to,” Eve said. “I’m gonna come up with a dirty story that’ll make those puffy squirrel cheeks of yours turn a beautiful shade of crimson.”

  Eve trotted back to her office, saying that she’d see Dora at her house around six for their traditional, though rarely enacted, pre-date ritual. Dora shouted back that she couldn’t wait.

  As soon as Eve’s door shut, Dora heard her on the phone, no doubt calling Lexie, or possibly that soldier bear she’d set her up with, to finalize plans. She let out a long, trailing sigh, and felt like the air escaping her lungs had been inside them for a month. “It’s about time,” she said under her breath. “I just hope this works.”

  She looked toward Eve’s door, and then down at her phone to see a cute, and slightly naughty message about what Monte was hoping to do to her after lunch. He ended the text with the words ‘afternoon delight’ which Dora chuckled at, knowing he was laughing too.

  “I just hope this works as well for you as it has for me,” she said with a slight twist to her words. She curled one side of her mouth into a smile. “Somehow, I think it will,” she said. “Somehow, I think it won’t be long before you’re getting naughty texts too. I doubt it’ll be very long before you have someone to hold you, someone to kiss you and do all the things you want him to do. If it isn’t this one, we’ll find you someone else. Me, Monte, Tenner, all the bears and the girls you’ve matched... we owe you, Evie, we owe you. And we’re not gonna let you down.”

  A half second later, the intercom on her desk fuzzed to life. “I hope so too,” Eve said.

  “What the—oh son of a bitch,” Dora blushed heavily and then laughed. “I had one of my binders on the button, didn’t I?”

  For a second, Eve was quiet, and then she coughed softly. “You... I wasn’t trying to make fun of you. It’s really hard for me to say anything remotely emotionally vulnerable, but you made me cry just now.”

  Dora sat there for a second, mouth open as she stared at the intercom. “I meant it,” she finally said. “Every last damn word. You deserve this.”

  “Not any more than anyone else,” Eve said. “But I meant it too. I don’t know if I’ve ever happy cried before. But,” she took a deep breath. “I think we both need to get back to work before we lose an entire day of match making to sitting around and crying like teenage girls.”

  “You know? Sometimes losing whole days to acting kinda silly might be a good thing,” Dora said, smiling to herself. “But yeah, I think you’re probably right. I love you Eve, I really do.”

  “Right there with you, girly,” Eve said. Dora could feel the warmth in her voice through the underlying static. “Er, I mean love you too.”

  The intercom clicked off, and Dora stared at it for a second, just letting her thoughts drift. As they did, she felt a warm trail run down her cheek, trace the line of her jaw and drip off her chin. A wet plop smudged the ink on the first piece of paper that lay on her desk. When she looked down and saw the number she’d written down months before; months that seemed like years.

  She traced the seven in Monte’s number with her index finger, pushing the tear around, and trying to remember why it was sitting there on her desk. For a few moments she wracked her brain, trying to remember what she was doing with that slip of paper. It took a few seconds before she flipped it over and it dawned on her that she’d used the other side of it to take down the information for someone she still had some work to do for.

  The name on the other side? Lexie Headly. “This is gonna be fun,” she said. “You lucked out, girl. It isn’t every day I get to set Eve up. You’re in for a wild damn ride.”

  4

  “This place is a dump.” Morales took a grease-covered rag and wiped pointlessly at his hands, then threw the towel on the ground and kicked at it with the toe of his boot. “I kinda love it.”

  “It’s already got a lift in here, too. Although it’s a little, uh...” Blake tugged at the lever which was supposed to operate the hydraulic car lift, but instead just made it creak and groan like a sick old man trying to get up a flight of stairs. “I mean, it can’t cost too much to get the parts to fix this thing.”

  “Well, we don’t have Uncle Sam to give us a couple million dollars every time the tread falls off a tank. In fact, we have approximately,” Morales trailed off and poked at his phone. “Four thousand—hey, what are you doing?”

  With a jolt, Blake looked away from the screen he was prodding. “Oh, sorry, uh... nothing. We’ve got two million bucks? Damn man, I thought we were—”

  “Someone’s preoccupied with a date,” Morales said, grinning from ear to ear. “No, no, don’t worry about it, keep looking.” Slowly, Blake brought his phone back and looked over the screen. “I’m glad you’re going out. I’m getting tired of your sad ass hanging around the house all the time. I’m just kidding, by the way, about the sad ass business. I’m just happy for you is all.”

  Blake cocked a half-smile. “Yeah, I know, I’m just kind of weirded out by the whole thing. I mean, I can’t tell you how long it’s been since I really went on a date date. And I talked to the girl and she sounds... well, kind of awesome, actually. At least, that’s what she told me.” He started chuckling to himself remembering how Lexie had told him all about her living room gymnastics when he called. “Uh... yeah, anyway how about this garage?”

  “You are ga-ga over this chick,” Morales observed. “Only you could manage to fall in love with someone before you even meet them. I mean, I guess you talked to her on the phone but I’ll be damned if you’re not completely stupid for this girl. Good thing I’m doubling with you, or you’d probably kill her with affection.”

  Blake scowled, though the flush on his cheeks told the whole story. “What the hell are you talking about? I just said she sounded awesome because she was...” he took a deep breath. “Okay fine, here’s the whole story. When I called, she apparently had some difficulty finding the phone, and when she did, she bobbled it around the place, tripping over everything and then catching herself. Did you ever see that old 80s video with Mr. T in it? The one where the kid falls over and does a little break dance then stands back up and that’s, apparently, how you’re supposed to keep from being embarrassed when you trip?”

  Morales cocked his head to one side. A bead of sweat ran down from his close-cropped sideburns and soaked into his collar. “Yep,” he said with a self-impressed smirk, “you just said all that shit in one breath. If you’re not in love, you’re on crank.”

  Blake punched Morales in the arm hard enough to elicit a yelp of pain. Before long the two of them were laughing, and Morales was rubbing his arm.

  “So, what do you think?” it was a distant voice from behind where they were standing, but Morales wasn’t paying enough attention to realize that.

  “I think you’re in love with a girl you’ve never met, and I couldn’t be happier for you! I just can’t believe it was apparently so easy.”

  “I’m not in love with her,” Blake said. “But that wasn’t even me talking.” He tilted his head toward the wide open bay door where a short, bald man who was wearing a set of coveralls and wiping at his forehead with a rag, stood framed by sunlight.

  “I ain’t either, son,” the man said as he approached. “Dave Bruckner, I own the place. At least I do now, I hope you’re going to own it before we walk out of here, because I’m really damn tired of changing the rat traps and not
being able to fix cars.”

  He had a sour look to him, but it wasn’t bitterness or anger, it was just that the lines on either side of his mouth ran from the corners all the way down his thin face. He had a small pot belly that dwelled below the hitched-up waistband of his coveralls, but was smiling. The three shook hands, and he showed them around the joint for a few minutes. After extolling the virtues of the building having no windows – you can put in ones you like – and having large holes in the mats that were strewn around – just pick ones you like – the three men settled back into an office toward the front of the building.

  “So, what do you think?” Morales asked Blake.

  The other bear was lost in thought. Morales jabbed him with an elbow. Dave Bruckner’s face drew into a look of concern. “Somethin’ wrong wid’im?” he asked. “Looks stunned. Shell shocked. Whatever. You still call it that?”

  “Only if you’re a turtle,” Morales said. He was watching his friend’s face, waiting for his eyes to unglaze—the sure sign he was about to come back to reality with a snap. When nothing happened, he stuck Blake with another elbow.

  Just then, Bruckner got the turtle joke, and broke into a wheezing laugh. “Turtle,” he said, “ain’t that a gas!”

  “Blake,” Morales said. “What’s your girlfriend’s name?”

  “Alexis Head—hey! What the hell? I don’t have a girlf—”

  Morales smiled broadly at his suckered friend. “Right, so what do you think of this place? We can get it for pretty cheap, as far as half-way furnished garages go.”

  “Headly, but she’s not my girlfriend,” Blake finished as though his brain hadn’t yet figured out what Morales had actually said to him. “Wait, what?” he finally asked. “Garage? What?”